Little Friends
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They must have been a sight for sore eyes to the soldiers on the beach Little Friends as wave after wave of fighters, bombers, and paratrooper-stuffed transports, some towing gliders, passed overhead, all of them adorned with black and white painted stripes. The invasion was on, and many of the fighter pilots expecting a Luftwaffe slugfest were disappointed by the dismal numbers that showed up. But there were still OVER THE BEACH plenty of targets both on the ground and in the air for those lucky enough to be at the THE FIGHTERS GET DOWN AND DIRTY right place at the right time. Follow along with these “little friends” about the historic day known as D-Day: the 6th of June, 1944. BY JAMES P. BUSHA One of the most colorful fighters of WW II, Lt. Ike Davis's Tarheel Hal' was attached to the 366th FS, 358th FG in the 9th AF. P-47 "Jugs" were superb in the behind-the-lines role of ground attack on D-Day. This aircraft is owned and operated by the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, TX. (Photo by Scott Slocum) AUGUST 2014 29 LITTLE FRIENDS OVER THE BEACH the war it was a piece of cake to shoot up locomo- tives and freight cars; that was until the Germans added “Q-cars” (like Q-ships) to the mix. They looked like any other freight car until the sides dropped and exposed quad 20mm cannons able to fire in all directions. Our loss rate of fighters shot up dramatically with these Q-cars. Strafing trains became dangerous work and a lot less fun! Live Bait: Fighting with the Pioneer Mustang Group By Captain Clayton “Kelly” Gross 355th Fighter Squadron, 354th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force ecause of the war, new fighter groups were forming at a rapid pace. With 65 hours of B P-39 time under my belt, I was assigned to the newly formed 354th Fighter Group and be- came a flight commander with the 355th Fighter Squadron. We continued to train in the P-39 un- and lower surfaces. It looked fast just sitting on Above: First Lt. Kelly Gross of til we received our orders to ship out and head to the ground! the 355th FS sits in the cockpit of his P-51B Mustang at the England, where we would join the fight. Although After spending two days going over a very thor- Everything that could fly was 354th FG's base at Lanshenden, called into action on D-Day. we flew Airacobras, we were told we would not ough cockpit checkout and some last-minute de- England, during May 1944. The Lightnings were greatly be flying them in combat, but instead would be mands by my instructor to emphatically, “Leave outnumbered by other Allied flying a “new fighter” that was just coming on the dive brakes alone,” I was sent on my way to Below: C-51B Mustang s/n fighters and their most 43-12451 GQ+I Peggy has important contribution may line. We arrived in England in early November check out this new thoroughbred. This was defi- 75-gallon drop tanks fitted on have been the F-5 versions in of 1943, and that’s where I met the airplane of nitely no P-39! I guess I had become spoiled with by Sgt. Segar and SSgt .Smith the photo recon role. (Photo by my dreams: the P-51 Mustang! Actually, the first tricycle-gear airplanes and had to go back to my at Boxted, England, during April John Dibbs/planepicture.com) 1944. "Peggy" was SSgt Smith's model I checked out in was the dive-bomber ver- early tail-dragger days to taxi the Apache without wife while the left side of the sion called the A-36 Apache. This early model, hitting something. The A-36 had a long, slender P-51B carried the name Live with the Allison engine, had only three propeller nose and you couldn’t see out the front end. We Bait! (Photos courtesy of Jack blades, had machine guns in the nose and wings, had to “S” turn from side to side until we were Cook) Twin-Tailed Trouble beaches, shoot it down — no questions asked. and had dive brakes embedded in both the upper ready for takeoff. I felt the power to be somewhat Captain Stanley P. Richardson, Jr Destroy anything that is not a P-38 entering your 338th Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force assigned patrol area.” n early June of 1944, my original P-38J, CL-X, We departed our base at Wormingford very late had been wrecked by a fellow pilot while I in the afternoon. The weather was terrible with I was on leave. I returned to see my pride and low ceilings and heavy rain as we struck out for joy lying on its belly from a combat encounter. our patrol area. From 1,500 feet, I saw countless My bunkmate, who was at the controls of my numbers of boats of all shapes and sizes all over Lightning, told me he had an engine shot out the channel heading for France. What a sight! while tangling with the Luftwaffe and made it all We orbited the beaches and I saw some sporadic the way back to base in England when he got cut gunfire, but nothing that would compare to the off by a landing B-17. With wheels down, flaps next day. We landed well after dark and trudged out, and only one prop turning, he ran out of to our bunks for some rest. options, raised the gear, and bellied it in. Thank- It was short-lived, however, because very early fully, with a war going on, there were many P-38s the next day, June 6, we were rolled out of our sitting around waiting to be assigned. bunks at 3:00 a.m. and, after eating breakfast and I was issued a new P-38 and my ground crew receiving our briefing, we were once again over got it ready to fly. Unfortunately, the day I was the beaches by 5:30 a.m. supposed to give it a test hop, everything was There were P-38s all over the sky with the 20th grounded so the ground crews could paint black and the 479th Groups milling around overhead and white stripes on our airplanes — invasion with us. There was not a German airplane in the stripes. I would have to perform double duty on sky that we saw, but had one shown up, it would my next flight, a combat mission and test hop all have been torn to shreds with the combined fire- rolled into one. power of our cannon and machine guns we car- On June 5, I was slotted to fly a night mission ried in our noses. I flew three missions on D-Day over the English Channel to cover the invasion and am proud to say the Allied air forces owned beaches along the French coast. The P-38s were the airspace above the beaches. But as our troops selected because they were extremely recogniz- on the ground moved inland, we followed from able with twin engines and twin tails, and noth- above and went after targets of opportunity. ing else looked like them. Our instructions were Personally, I liked going after trains, but the simple: “If you see anything flying over the Germans didn’t take too kindly to that. Early in 30 flightjournal.com AUGUST 2014 31 LITTLE FRIENDS OVER THE BEACH similar, especially with the familiar Allison en- fighting in the Eagle Squadrons after the Battle of "STAY WHERE gine out in front of me (instead of behind) like Britain. The thing I remember most was that he it was in the Airacobra. But once airborne, it was emphasized to us that during a head-on attack, YOU’RE AT AND I’LL quite different. I could tell right away that it was the guy who broke first would be at a disadvan- much more responsive and lighter on the aile- tage. I silently thought it would be more of a dis- CLIMB ABOVE YOU rons. After two flights in the A-36, I was deemed advantage if we rammed into one another! INTO THE SUN AND ready to check out the rest of the squadron pilots. We continued to train, and this time it was in Baptism of fire THEN HOPEFULLY WE the P-51A models — same as the A-36 but with- On December 11, 1943, I flew my first combat CAN DRAW SOME out dive brakes. We only spent a couple of hours mission — a B-17 escort over Germany. Some of on the A model before the more powerful P-51Bs the guys in the squadron already had nose art on ACTION.” arrived in mid-November of 1943. From then their Mustangs, and at first, I was going to put my on, the 354th FG would always be known as the wife’s nickname, “Lil Pigeon,” on it. The prob- Pioneer Mustangs — the first U.S. Army Air Force lem was, it had a history of bringing bad luck. I group to take the new Mustang into combat. had given my first P-39 that name and someone made a wheels-up landing. The second P-39 suffered a worse fate when the pilot cart- wheeled it. The third time was not the charm when another pilot crashed that one as well. I agonized over it until the name came to me on one of my missions.